The chaos magic of Darwin Núñez strikes again!
Nottingham Forest 0 Liverpool 1, 2nd March 2024.
NOTTINGHAM FOREST 0
LIVERPOOL 1 (Núñez 90+9)
At half-time today I proclaimed into the dark void and mental asylum formerly known as Twitter that Liverpool needed a “goal scoring hero”.
Step forward Darwin Núñez.
Today was a nothing of a game largely shaded by the Mighty Reds dressed all in purple yet the only clear cut goal scoring chances fell to Nottingham Forest and both occasions, to the ex Manchester United striker Anthony Elanga. A fast break on 23 minutes saw Elanga sprinting clear of the Liverpool offside trap from a pass from ex Red Divock Origi. One on one with Caoimhin Kelleher, the Irishman in the Reds goal produced a wonderful last ditch save with an out-stretched leg but could only stand and watch as Elanga had his goal at his mercy, yet he screwed his shot inches wide on 65 minutes when he could and really should have scored.
The Reds meanwhile were urged forward and largely controlled the game via the tenacity of 19 year old Bobby Clark on his Premier League debut and the dazzling skills of their Colombian Wizard, Luis Díaz. Watertight at the back and busy in midfield, Liverpool needed that goal scoring hero as however hard Cody Gakpo tried in his lone striker mission, he never looked likely to score today and the Reds only true goal bound effort to trouble Matz Sels in the Forest goal came inadvertently from the back of his own defender Murillo 4 minutes into injury time. Sels clawed away the accidental and unwitting possible own goal brilliantly, and he appeared to have secured a vital point in his team’s battle with relegation from the Premier League.
Step forward the chaos magic of Darwin Núñez.
Entering the 99th minute and referee Paul Tierney seconds away from executing the final shrill of his whistle, Wataru Endō “ratted around” for the loose ball following a corner before Alexis Mac Allister had the calmness of head to snag the loose ball, turn ex Red Taiwo Awoniyi easily on the edge of the penalty area and deliver a delicious curling cross that met with the chaos magic of Darwin Núñez, and the hordes of Reds in the “Away” end of Nottingham Forest’s famed City Ground went wild with chaotic delight.
And that’s all she wrote!
I continue to end these journals by exclaiming that I don’t know how this ragtag team of teenagers, players barely in their 20’s and a team missing Mo Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Thiago Alcântara, Joël Matip, Alisson Becker, Ryan Gravenberch, Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota continue to pull off extraordinary wins against the odds, but they do. The month of March will be a defining one with contests in all three remaining competitions and a double-header with Sparta Prague sprinkled between a high profile double with the teams either side of the Manchester footballing divide.
I’m an emotional old soul at the best of times and for 99 minutes and often more twice a week, I lose myself in the footballing escape of cheering on Jürgen Klopp’s “boys” and “kids” and all I could do as Darwin Núñez raced like a madman to the acclaim and explosion of joy behind the goal in which he’d just scored a priceless, unbelievable winning goal was to utter the words
“I don’t believe this”
over, and over, and over again.
Thus is the chaos magic of Darwin Núñez.
A final word from The Boss
“It was, it is so important the goal which gives you three points. It’s always super-decisive and, especially for him, super-deserved….Before that he had really good moments. I think it was him after a set-piece, I’m if right, a sensational save of the goalie. It was his chance as well. He was really immediately in the game, in a difficult game for us obviously”.
“Game number 4 in 11 days is always difficult. With our squad situation, it’s super-difficult. We didn’t start particularly well, it was obvious, but we had no real rhythm — that was the problem a little bit. Not really fluent, these kind of things, you have to play quick against a defensive block, you have to play in the right spaces, we had too many players behind the ball — normal football things — and created anyway then a few chances, not the biggest ones. But we had a few chances which showed us how we can do it”.
“For us, it’s super-important today and I’m really happy with that. So, now we have a few days longer until the next game. We need that to recharge and then we can train properly as well, which is helpful. The last 11 days we couldn’t train at all, we just recovered and played again. That’s the situation. Super-special. If you asked me 12 days ago if it was possible to win all four, I would have said no. But the boys made it happen”.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game with well over 180 articles past and present filling my “Liverpool FC” library here. Alternatively, here are my three most recently published articles on the team I adore:
